After Ghosts: Raven's Return
by PeriwinkleGargoyle
Summary: Just something that I wrote after I finished ghosts one time. Raven returns, explaining what happened, and talks to Wraith. Please review!


Wraith reached out a hand and dialled a cup of tea from the sleek, clean Nutromac in London's new political buildings. Outside he could see down through all the levels of the city and watch thousands of people going about their daily business, a sight he never tired of. Fourteen years in Transendence had led him mostly to forget what London looked like and he liked to remind himself.  
Taking a sip of the tea, he sat down on a modern-looking couch and breathed deeply. He knew he should be working but six hours at a desk ad taken its toll and he needed a break.  
Behind him came a blinding flash of blue light that hurt his eyes. He sighed in annoyance. Logging a complaint about the erratic lighting in the building hadn't got it any closer to being fixed.  
He finished the tea and turned to walk back to his desk but halted halfway.  
A slim figure, dressed entirely in black, was already sitting there.  
She had eyes blacker than coal and midnight-dark straight that fell over her shoulders. Her skin was almost white and her twisted mouth all too clearly showed her opinion of that she was reading. Wraith tried to speak but all he could manage was a hoarse gasp.  
"Raven?"  
"Well done," was the absent and somewhat sarcastic reply.  
"But you're..." Words failed Wraith and he bit his tongue in annoyance. A politician had to be able to cope with any situation, including their presumed-dead sister returning in their office after disappearing fourteen years previously.  
"Dead?" suggested Raven blankly, her eyes still fixated on the papers.   
"Yes...no...but..."  
Raven rolled her eyes and cleared her throat in mock sincerity.  
"The Raven Memorial Service," she read. £Introductory Speech, draft two."   
"Stop," begged Wraith halfheartedly, but Raven was merciless.  
"We are gathered here today to remember two brave Hexes in particular, but also to remember many others." Raven's voice continued, but Wraith was only conscious of a deep blush spreading slowly across his pale features - a sensation unfamiliar to him. Raven's voice took on another ounce of withering contempt as she reached another paragraph.  
"The second Hex is a girl named Raven. She had extraordinary possession of her abilities-" Wraith stepped forwards and snatched the sheet out of Raven's hands. She laughed.  
"Never thought of you as a preacher," she grinned, meeting his eyes at last. Under the scrutiny of her black-eyed gaze, so full of warmth and yet somehow so cold, something deep within Wraith broke. He took Raven's wrists and pulled her to her feet, drawing her into a long, slow hug. It was Raven who pulled back first, but Wraith kept hold of her hands. She tried to slip them out of his grasp but failed. Reluctantly she allowed them to remain.   
"What happened to you?" he asked, slightly surprised to find tears in his eyes. "I thought you were dead." He reached up a hand to stroke her hair and looked long and hard at his sister's face.  
Raven had barely aged. Subtle changes in the colours of her face and shape of her cheekbones betrayed the years that had passed, but they were not obvious.  
As Wraith considered this, Raven finally succeeded in freeing her hands and swung herself onto the desk, swinging her legs beneath her. Sensing his scrutiny, she decided to explain.  
"I can appear however I like," she said. "I could make myself look exactly like Ali if I wanted, but that would only confuse you."  
"How?" Wraith was at a loss. Raven sighed.  
"When I disappeared from Transendence, I was absorbed into the net. It says in the Freedom files that a Hex can become mind without flesh - that's what I am. What you see now is not a body but just a very clever prijection, like a vidscreen. However, if a scientist created an artificial body or hooked one up to a computer system I could send myself into it."   
"I think I'm with you," said Wraith. "But why? Why are you here?"  
"You don't want me to be?"  
"Of course I do!"  
Raven flipped her hair out of her eyes. Wraith noticed that it was neatly combed, not in its usual tangle.  
"I don't know. Which flight do you want to leave on?"  
"What?"   
"To Transendence."  
"Transendence?!"  
"Of course," Raven grinned wickedly and hopped off the desk. "Do I recall people called Ali, Kez, Avalon and Cloud?"


End file.
